Sam Hinkie’s Resignation is being lauded by many who judge the Philadelphia 76ers on the win loss column. Trouble is, that’s the last place to measure
Imagine trying to judge the impact of an avalanche by looking at one snowflake. Or try to imagine the maximum speed of a car by walking past it in a parking lot. A joke I once heard goes like this: A man was busily searching through the sofa cushions and making an elaborate mess. When his annoyed wife approached him and asked him what he was looking for, he replied that he had lost his car keys and was looking for them. “Where did you lose them?” she asked. “Well, I felt them fall out of my pocket when I was moving things around in the basement.” he answered.
“So why are you looking here?” she demanded. “Because the light is better here.” he responded.
To those of you judging the performance of Sam Hinkie’s tenure with the Philadelphia 76ers by the win loss record, you are like the man searching for keys in his living room. It’s the wrong place to look, but it’s easier to see there, so that’s where you search.
Wins and losses. The reward for the team that does not hoist a championship, but which takes them out of the source of the next one – the NBA draft. In the case of Sam Hinkie, there is a clear distinction to be made. Is the goal simply to win games, or is the goal to win championships? Depending on your answer, you will either find Hinkie’s resignation as a positive step, or as a step backwards.
If the goal is truly wins and losses, the objective of this team shifts in a major way. Every action is simply designed to improve the performance of the team in the following year. Nothing more, nothing less. In the universe of wins and losses, the options are much more finite, there is no learning process. It is the most reactive style of managing a basketball organization possible. Cause and effect. A bad season for a player, that player is cut or traded and a new player is added to assume that role with a better upside – either via trade, free agency, or the draft.
In fact, salary cap dollars are typically maxed out in a Win Loss focus. The reason is obvious – if you have salary dollars to spend on a player who COULD help your team, you spend them. Money burns a hole in your franchise pockets. Look at teams with huge salary cap room. They are under-performers in the NBA. The very nature of focusing on wins drives the price of your players up. Success on your roster suggest success elsewhere. A player who contributes to a win salary demands increase to that of the market. When you play to win, your players seek top dollar – something that exhausts a team’s coffers rather quickly. If you focus on wins, and many teams, analysts, and fans do, your team falls into the salary management annual dance, the one or two NBA draft picks in the middle of round one, and the hope for a miracle to get better.
Miracles are not that common in the NBA.
Next: The Win Loss Paradox?
The Win Loss Paradox
The win loss focus is an unsolvable paradox. Here’s why:
Assume you are in the mindset of Wins and Losses. There is nothing wrong with that. It’s a free nation, and you have the right to choose. But if the goal is wins and losses, you build a team to win now. If you have the choice to draft a huge upside but with risk Joel Embiid with the third pick of the 2014 NBA draft, or another player with less upside but healthy, you choose health. If you have the chance to trade Elfrid Payton for the rights to Dario Saric and the opportunity to extinguish owing a first round protected pick for the Andrew Bynum nightmare trade, you don’t take that trade. In essence, winning now is a higher priority than the NBA draft picks.
In fact, if you are in the “win now” camp, your NBA draft board this year is a single first round pick. You never trade Michael Carter Williams, and therefore never get the Lost Angeles Lakers first round protected pick. The same Sixers never trade Thaddeus Young, and thereby fail to obtain the Miami Heat first round protected pick. The team would not absorb the contract of JaVale McGee from the Denver Nuggets, and therefore would not obtain the rights to the Oklahoma City Thunder’s first round protected pick. You don’t take on the contracts of Jason Thompson, Carl Landry, and Nik Stauskas from the Sacramento Kings for rights to swap first round picks for the next two seasons, plus the first round pick of the Kings in 2019.
In fact, without Sam Hinkie’s payroll slashing, signing developmental talent on this team, you don’t have the like of Covington, Holmes, McConnell, Canaan or Wood on this roster. You don’t draft Jahlil Okafor in the 2015 NBA draft. If you were focused on wins only, you would be in the ball park of the Sacramento Kings – whose head coach George Karl has been one of the most critical coaches of Sam Hinkie and the process of building a championship. If George Karl‘s take on the NBA is correct, the Kings should be heading deep into the playoffs. Instead, they are finishing another season out of the playoffs.
When I joined the Sixer Sense, my professional skepticism got the better of me. Here was a team that believed in the general manager despite losing. And so, I had to investigate. Without relying on wins and losses, just how good was the impact of Sam Hinkie on the Philadelphia 76ers team? I investigated the purest area of Hinkie’s influence, player transactions with other NBA teams. I reviewed the Jrue Holiday trade, the Spencer Hawes trade, the Thaddeus Young trade, the controversial Michael Carter-Williams trade, and finally, the K.J. McDaniels trade. In each occasion, there was no head scratching (albeit plenty of that happened at the moments of some trades). After the trades, events have shown time and time again that the moves were logical, the Sixers eventually ended up in a better position going forward (holistically) and that the organization was laying a foundation of a multi-year plan to improve to a championship caliber team. How could Sam Hinkie beat the odds, which if both teams are equal and GMs have similar goals, should have resulted in some deals going the wrong way for the team?
Next: True Proof In The Process
True Proof In The Process
The reason is simply that other GMs were shackled by the win now concept. Sam Hinkie could separate draft picks from other team because his team had plenty of salary cap space to absorb contracts of overpaid players from other teams. Those contracts are aplenty in the NBA, because the majority of teams operate based on the win column. Managing a team on the win side does not eliminate the inherent risks of trades, of the NBA draft, nor of the risk of overpaying for players in contract negotiations. In fact, there is a reality that it increases the risk as it drives team to act with the emotional component of fear of failure. That skews random probability.
The reason managing wins is more popular has nothing to do with the effectiveness. It simply gives a better appearance. It looks better to owners and fans. “Nothing that a new coat of fresh paint can’t fix” sells. Sam Hinkie did not renovate the old decay. He opted the more difficult and more effective route. He bulldozed the organization to rubble, and is in the process of rebuilding the team brick by brick. At least, that was his plan.
Let’s look at where the Philadelphia 76ers are, today, at the moment the former president and general manager of the team resigned. The team currently has five first round draft choices on the roster: Jahlil Okafor, Nerlens Noel, Nik Stauskas, Joel Embiid, and Elton Brand. Of this group, only Elton Brand‘s contract expires at the end of this season. The team also retains the rights to Dario Saric, another first round draft selection, who will join the team in the 2016 NBA season. If the lottery balls are favorable to the Philadelphia 76ers this year, the team will add another four first round selections to this team. That is as many as 9-10 first round draft pick players on this team, with no stress on the cap space. None whatsoever. Should the team pursue free agency in the same age and talent range of the existing core of players, the team will be able to bring on several top free agents if desired.
In short, Sam Hinkie has given everyone in the NBA someone and something to scoff at and hate in the NBA, purposefully. In his resignation letter he stated his goals as
"Replenish the talent pipeline, improve the quality and quantity of players on the roster, shift the style of play towards tomorrow’s champions, and become a culture focused on innovation. – Sam Hinkie via his resignation letter"
Where is the proof? The talent pipeline for the Philadelphia 76ers is running at full capacity. The quality and quantity of players on the roster is up for debate, but only in the context that this is a very young and rapidly improving group. Teams, and players, take time to build. That time is not one season, but several seasons with a consistent roster. So far, the team is only now in a position to exercise those attributes going forward. The innovation aspect cannot be questioned, even by the most irrational and emotional critics. If you are truly measuring someone’s performance, you truly must adhere to the metrics established to track that process.
Jerry Colangelo is a win manager. He manages his NBA teams to win. They have never won a championship in this NBA. Neither Jerry Colangelo, nor his son Bryan Colangelo, have won championships in the NBA. They managed to win plenty of NBA games, however.
Next: The Piggy Bank Budget
The Piggy Bank Budget
The Philadelphia 76ers have practically starved themselves for the past three years, converting all excess value of the franchise into the vaults of either talented youth, draft picks, or salary cap space. To deny that the Philadelphia 76ers are robust in all three categories is a blatant act of denial. With that austerity, the team has managed to end up at the 2016 off-season with practically all possible options open to them to improve the team. And let’s be clear here and now, the duo of father Jerry and son Bryan Colangelo will do just that. They could get inebriated, bring a monkey into the room, arm it with darts at their draft board, and select players from the results and improve this team That is how rich the 76ers are in NBA draft currency this year.
But every child who has saved his or her coins with a piggy bank knows the timeline of the piggy bank budget. You save… and save… and save… and save… and save some more. Finally, when you have enough money, you take a hammer to your porcelain pig bank and load up on your hard earned savings. And what happens next? A shopping spree.
The Philadelphia 76ers will be going on that shopping spree going forward. Shopping sprees are awfully fun in the moments leading up to them, and then in the midst is complete euphoria. But eventually, the money will run out for this team. Can wins be bought? Definitely yes. Can Championships be bought? Most evidence points to no. Now with the father / son pair of NBA notable executives, they will be spending the NBA currency that Sam Hinkie carefully stored away. It will be a time of euphoria in Philadelphia to be sure. Perhaps a 30 win season in the 2016-2017 season, followed by a .500 season the following year. But by 2017-2018, the momentum of spending draft picks, salary caps, and youthful roster will have been exhausted. By that time, the Philadelphia 76ers will be running on deals and currency generated by the Colangelo’s actions to be. Perhaps the team will improve further, but the team could just as likely begin the slow descent, weighted down by inflated contracts and misspent draft picks.
Next: Philadelphia 76ers Express Appreciation For Sam Hinkie
It’s easy to spend someone else’s money. For the upcoming off-season, the team bolstered by the Colangelo connection could manage to sign a surprise free agent and even make a blockbuster trade of picks for a young veteran player. For the upcoming off-season, the Philadelphia 76ers will be viewed as “relevant” once more. But the wiser fans will keep an eye on the Hinkie principals, the principals that were so persuasive that the team hired Sam Hinkie to become both the team president and the general manager. The attributes are (1) Talent Pipeline, (2) Player quality, (3) Championship style of play and (4) innovative culture.
I’m already prepared to scratch off item four from the list. If wins is the ultimate goal, then I think the Philadelphia 76ers are on the right track. But if winning NBA championships is the ultimate goal, then it will depend on just one simple thing. Has Hinkie saved enough to get us to a championship win before the Colangelos spend it all? We will find out over time.